I just love the merit system and new ranks because it gives equal opportunity to every member of the forum to show their skills by posting high quality posts.
I believe that the merit system not only creates equal conditions for writing highly qualified posts, but also radically changes the established hierarchy on the forum. Now its not enough to be a high rank user to enjoy the respect of other participants. Personally, I look at the number of merit first of all. And I think many others also evaluate this indicator. Now the rank itself doesn`t mean anything: if it`s not confirmed by merits, then trust in such a user immediately falls and his account begins to cause suspicion. We see a huge number of hero and legendary members who aren`t able to earn at least 1 merit, but on the other hand we see users of lower ranks who have proven that they really benefit the bitcointalk forum. A new elite is being formed at the forum, the foundation of which is not activity and rank, but merit-recognition from other members of the bitcointalk community.